Michael Zemcov Headshot

Michael Zemcov

Professor and Director Astrophysical Sciences and Technology

School of Physics and Astronomy
College of Science
mbzsps@rit.edu
585-475-2338
Office Location
ENG-3177

Michael Zemcov

Professor and Director Astrophysical Sciences and Technology

School of Physics and Astronomy
College of Science

Education

BSc, University of British Columbia (Canada); Ph.D., Cardiff University (United Kingdom)

Bio

I am a Professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy and director of RIT's Experimental Astrophysics Laboratory. My research centers on instrumentation for cosmological observations, including the cosmic microwave and infra-red backgrounds. I develop instruments and data analysis methods for a variety of platforms, including ground-based, sub-orbital rockets, and orbital observatories. Currently, my scientific focus is on the epoch of reionization, secondary anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background, and studies of the history of star formation in the Universe using novel techniques and experiments. I have extensive experience with instrumentation, observation and data analysis for astrophysics throughout the electromagnetic spectrum from the optical to the radio, with particular emphasis on the infra-red and sub-mm/mm regimes. My group is currently involved in several projects in a variety of roles, ranging from technology development to the scientific interpretation of data from mature instruments.

For more information please visit the Zemcov Research Group website.

mbzsps@rit.edu
585-475-2338
Personal Links
Personal Website
Areas of Expertise
Experimental Physics
Physics
Astronomy
Astrophysics
Cosmology
Detectors

Select Scholarship

Journal Paper
Young, Olivia R., et al. "Constraining Solar Emission Radius at 42 MHz During the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse Using a Student-commissioned Radio Telescope." The Astrophysical Journal 979. 2 (2025): 13. Web.
Feder, Richard M., et al. "CIBER Fourth Flight Fluctuation Analysis: Pseudopower Spectrum Formalism, Improved Source Masking, and Validation on Mocks." The Astrophysical Journal 991. 1 (2025): 24. Web.
Zemcov, Michael, et al. "The Cosmic Infrared Background Experiment-2: An Intensity-mapping Optimized Sounding-rocket Payload to Understand the Near-IR Extragalactic Background Light." The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series 280. 2 (2025): 25. Web.
Feder, Richard M., et al. "CIBER Fourth-flight Fluctuation Analysis: Measurements of Near-infrared Auto and Cross Power Spectra on Arcminute to Subdegree Scales." The Astrophysical Journal 994. 1 (2025): 33. Web.
Crill, Brendan, et al. "The SPHEREx Sky Simulator: Science Data Modeling for the First All-sky Near-infrared Spectral Survey." The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series 281. 1 (2025): 25. Web.
Raghunathan, S, et al. "First Constraints on the Epoch of Reionization Using the Non-Gaussianity of the Kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect from the South Pole Telescope and Herschel-SPIRE Observations." Physical Review Letters 133. 12 (2024): 8. Web.
Bulter, Victoria, et al. "TIME: the Tomographic Ionized-carbon Mapping Experiment: an update on design, characterization, and data from the 2022 commissioning observations." Proceedings of the SPIE 13102. (2024): 11. Web.
Content, Robert, et al. "SIRMOS: NIR spectroscopy of 131,000,000 galaxies over 1 < z < 4 and R 1300." Proceedings of the SPIE 13092. (2024): 13. Print.
Nie, Rong, et al. "A Vacuum Waveguide Filter Bank Spectrometer for Far-Infrared Astrophysics." Journal of Low Temperature Physics. (2024): 10. Web.
Matsuura, Shuji, et al. "The cosmic infrared background experiment 2 (CIBER-2): status of recent flights." Proceedings of the SPIE. (2024): 12. Web.
Brooks, Elyssa, et al. "Development of Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors for a THz On-Chip Spectrometer." Journal of Low Temperature Physics 214. 3-4 (2024): 230-237. Web.
Sun, Fengwu, et al. "ALMA Lensing Cluster Survey: ALMA-Herschel Joint Study of Lensed Dusty Star-forming Galaxies across z ≃ 0.5 - 6." The Astrophysical Journal 932. 2 (2022): 36. Web.
Butler, Victoria, et al. "Measurement of the Relativistic Sunyaev-Zeldovich Correction in RX J1347.5-1145." The Astrophysical Journal 932. 1 (2022): 15. Web.
Takimoto, Kohji, et al. "Polarization Spectrum of Near-Infrared Zodiacal Light Observed with CIBER." The Astrophysical Journal 926. 1 (2022): 16. Web.
Korngut, Phil, et al. "Inferred Measurements of the Zodiacal Light Absolute Intensity through Fraunhofer Absorption Line Spectroscopy with CIBER." The Astrophysical Journal 926. 2 (2022): 15. Web.
Cheng, Yun-Ting. et al. "Probing Intra-Halo Light with Galaxy Stacking in CIBER Images." The Astrophysical Journal 919. 2 (2021): 22. Web.
Symons, Teresa, et al. "Superresolution Reconstruction of Severely Undersampled Point-spread Functions Using Point-source Stacking and Deconvolution." The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series 252. 2 (2021): 18. Web.
Duivenvoorden, Steve, et al. "Have we seen all the galaxies that comprise the cosmic infrared background at 250 μm ≤ λ ≤ 500 μm?" Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 491. 1 (2020): 1355-1368. Web.
Chang, Feng, and Zemcov, Michael. "Multi-component Decomposition of Cosmic Infrared Background Fluctuations." The Astrophysical Journal 875. 2 (2019): 13. Web.
Duncan, Farrah, and Zemcov, Michael. "Review: Far-infrared Instrumentation and Technological Development for the Next Decade." Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems 5. (2019): 20901. Web.
Rodríguez-Muñoz, Lucia and Michael Zemcov. "Quantifying the Suppression of the (Un)-obscured Star Formation in Galaxy Cluster Cores at 0.2≲ z ≲0.9." Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 485. 1 (2019): 586-619. Web.
Sayers, Jack and Michael Zemcov. "Imaging the Thermal and Kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect Signals in a Sample of 10 Massive Galaxy Clusters: Constraints on Internal Velocity Structures and Bulk Velocities." The Astrophysical Journal 880. 1 (2019): 15. Web.
Viero, Marco and Michael Zemcov. "Measurements of the Cross-spectra of the Cosmic Infrared and Microwave Backgrounds from 95 to 1200 GHz." The Astrophysical Journal 881. 2 (2019): 12. Web.
Poppe, Andrew and Michael Zemcov. "Constraining the Solar System's Debris Disk with In Situ New Horizons Measurements from the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt." The Astrophysical Journal Letters 881. 1 (2019): L12. Web.
Zemcov, Michael, et al. "Astrophysics with New Horizons: Making the Most of a Generational Opportunity." Proceedings of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 130. 993 (2018): 115001. Print.
Nguyen, Chi, et al. "Integration and Instrument Characterization of the Cosmic Infrared Background Experiment 2 (CIBER-2)." SPIE 10698. 106984J (2018): 1. Web.
Park, Won-Kee, et al. "Development of Data Storage System and GSE for Cosmic Infrared Background Experiment 2 (CIBER-2)." SPIE 10698. 1069849 (2018): 1. Web.
Korngut, Philip, James Bock, and Michael Zemcov. "SPHEREx: an all-sky NIR spectral survey." SPIE 10698. 106981U (2018): 1. Web.
Duivenvoorden, Stephen, Seb Oliver, and Michael Zemcov. "Red, Redder, Reddest: SCUBA-2 Imaging of Colour-selected Herschel Sources." MNRAS 477. 1 (2018): 1099-1119. Web.
Sun, Jason, Lorenzo Moncelsi, and Michael Zemcov. "A Foreground Masking Strategy for [C II] Intensity Mapping Experiments Using Galaxies Selected by Stellar Mass and Redshift." ApJ 856. 2 (2018): 15. Web.
Nayyeri, Hooshang, N Ghotbi, and Michael Zemcov. "Spitzer Observations of the North Ecliptic Pole." ApJ 234. 2 (2018): 9. Web.
Invited Keynote/Presentation
Zemcov, Michael. "Invited." OPENS Science International Workshop. ISAS/JAXA. Sagamihara, Japan. 30 Sep. 2025. Guest Lecture.
Zemcov, Michael. "Seeing the Universe in Technicolor though Intensity Spectrometry with TIME and SPHEREx." NRAO and U.Va. Department of Astronomy Colloquium Series. University of Virginia. Charlottesville, VA. 25 Sep. 2024. Lecture.
Zemcov, Michael. "Fluctuation measurements of the cosmic optical and infrared backgrounds." AstroParticle Symposium 2024. Institut Pascal, Université Paris-Saclay. Paris, France. 13 Nov. 2024. Guest Lecture.
Zemcov, Michael. "An Opportunity for Astrophysics from the Outer Solar System." 42nd COSPAR Meeting. COSPAR. Pasadena, CA. 1 Jul. 2018. Conference Presentation.
Published Game, Application or Software
Zemcov, Michael, Richard Feder, and Ryan Wills. SPIRE HeRS/HeLMS Combined SHIM Maps. Software. Zendod. 2024.
Published Conference Proceedings
Silich, E, et al. "Improved Constraints on Mergers with SZ, Hydrodynamical simulations, Optical, and X-ray (ICM-SHOX). Paper II: Galaxy cluster sample overview." Proceedings of the mm Universe 2023 - Observing the Universe at mm Wavelengths. Ed. F Mayet, et al. Grenoble, France: EPJ Web of Conferences, 2024. Web.
Vaughan, Benjamin, et al. "Reducing Information Loss due to Atmospheric Noise using Cross-linking with TIME." Proceedings of the American Physical Society April Meeting 2024. Ed. N/A. Washington, DC: n.p., 2024. Web.
Mercado, Dale, et al. "Development of a Fourier transform spectrometer for the calibration of THz on-chip spectrometers." Proceedings of the Proceedings Volume 12190, Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy XI. Ed. Jonas Zmuidzinas, Jian-Rong Gao. Montreal, Canada: SPIE, 2022. Web.
Takimoto, Kohji, et al. "Pre-flight optical test and calibration for the Cosmic Infrared Background ExpeRiment 2 (CIBER-2) Show affiliations." Proceedings of the Proceedings of the SPIE: Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2020: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave;. Ed. Makenzie Lystrup, Marshall D. Perrin, Natalie Batalha, Nicholas Siegler, Edward C. Tong. San Diego, CA: SPIE, 2020. Web.
Crill, Brendan, et al. "SPHEREx: NASA's near-infrared spectrophotometric all-sky survey." Proceedings of the Proceedings of the SPIE: Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2020: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave. Ed. Makenzie Lystrup, Marshall D. Perrin, Natalie Batalha, Nicholas Siegler, Edward C. Tong. San Diego, CA: SPIE, 2020. Web.
Brandt, Pontus and Michael Zemcov. "Interstellar Probe: A Cross-Divisional Mission in to the Galaxy." Proceedings of the Space Astrophysics Landscape for the 2020s and Beyond. Ed. Malmquist, Fred. Potomac, MD: n.p., 2019. Web.
Dore, Olivier, Michael Werner, and Michael Zemcov. "Science Impacts of the SPHEREx All-Sky Optical to Near-Infrared Spectral Survey II: Report of a Community Workshop on the Scientific Synergies Between the SPHEREx Survey and Other Astronomy Observatories." Proceedings of the SPHEREx Workshop II. Ed. Dore, Warner. Cambridge, MA: n.p., 2018. Web.

Currently Teaching

ASTP-601
Graduate Seminar I
1 Credit
This course is the first in a two-semester sequence intended to familiarize students with research activities, practices, and ethics in the university research environment and to introduce students to commonly used research tools. As part of the course, students are expected to attend research seminars sponsored by the Astrophysical Sciences and Technology Program and participate in a weekly journal club. The course also provides training in scientific writing and presentation skills. Credits earned in this course apply to research requirements.
ASTP-790
Research & Thesis
1-3 Credits
Masters-level research by the candidate on an appropriate topic as arranged between the candidate and the research advisor.
ASTP-791
Continuation of Thesis
1 Credit
Continuation of Thesis
ASTP-799
ASTP Independent Study
1-4 Credits
An independent study in an area of astrophysical sciences and technology not covered in the available courses. This study may be reading study of an appropriate textbook, literature review, or other appropriate work. The course requires a formal proposal, faculty sponsor, and program approval.
ASTP-851
Cosmology
3 Credits
This course will cover the evolution of the universe from the big bang to the present, with an emphasis on the synergy between theory and observations. Topics will fall under three general headings: classical and relativistic cosmology, the early universe, and structure formation.
ASTP-890
Research & Thesis
1-6 Credits
Dissertation research by the candidate for an appropriate topic as arranged between the candidate and the research advisor.
ASTP-891
Continuation of Thesis
1 Credit
Continuation of Thesis
PHYS-790
Graduate Research & Thesis
1-4 Credits
Graduate-level research by the candidate on an appropriate topic as arranged between the candidate and the research advisor.
PHYS-791
Continuation of Thesis
1 Credit
Graduate-level research by the candidate on an appropriate topic as arranged between the candidate and the research advisor.

In the News

  • February 1, 2023

    four researchers standing in a room under construction.

    Expanding RIT’s research footprint

    RIT has been expanding its research footprint to accommodate the university’s growing research portfolio. The Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED), which opens this fall, is enabling the university to convert 10 existing classrooms, totaling more than 23,000 square feet, into new research space. Another 14,700 square feet of research space opened in January in Brown Hall.

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